


A Float to Shore

by DreamingPagan



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Divergent AU, De Groot's still too old and tired for this shit, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Pirate Politics, Prompt Fill, Singleton's always been an arse, and Gates is crew Dad, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/pseuds/DreamingPagan
Summary: Hal Gates is having a rough month. Fortunately for him, his latest prize has the solution to all the troubles he doesn't know he's about to let himself in for.Canon Divergent AU where Thomas is taken directly to the plantation and is intercepted by the Walrus before James and Miranda ever reach Nassau.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sirenswhisper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenswhisper/gifts).



> This is for Sirenswhisper - thank you for the prompt!

“The take is officially fucking miserable.”

A bag of coin thunks down on the table in front of him, and Hal Gates looks up from the ledger he is currently perusing.

Oliver Lawrence looks down at him, and for one instant - and only one - Gates feels sorry for him.

“The men’ve checked the captain’s cabin?” he asks, and Lawrence shakes his head.

“They’ve barricaded the damn door from within,” he answers. “It’ll take an hour or more to get past it.”

“An hour that we don’t have,” Gates observes sourly. “The wind’s about to change, and when it does -”

“There’s no need to lecture me on it,” Lawrence snaps, and Gates feels the already small well of pity evaporate. He gives the captain a stare, and feels his contempt increase when the man actually shies away a bit, taking a step backward. Christ, Gates thinks - he’s met children just out of the cradle with more backbone than this - and better luck, too.

“Have we at least managed to break even?” he growls, and Lawrence nods.

“Aye. There’ll be no profit in this for the men, though - she’s as empty as can be of anything worth selling.”

“What the hell were they doing all the way out here if they were running empty?”

It simply does not make sense. The ship is all the way out in the middle of the Atlantic fucking Ocean. By all rights, she should be carrying something - wealthy passengers, cargo of some kind worth something - slaves or fucking letters, even. Granted, they had taken the ship more or less on a whim, rather than a tip-off, but -

“Singleton means to find out.”

“ _Singleton?_ ” Gates stands abruptly. Of all the damned stupid decisions - “You put Singleton to interrogating the captain of this shitty little vessel for information?”

“He’ll get the job done.”

“He’ll kill him within the first fifteen minutes, and then where the hell will we be?”

“Feared. Respected.”

The fury that washes over him threatens to overwhelm him, and when he speaks again, his voice is a strangled thing, nearly choked off with rage.

“Feared. You want to be feared.”

Lawrence nods, and Gates feels the moment the anger takes hold of him. It’s a roiling, living thing, starting in his chest and moving upward to redden his cheeks and make his fists curl.

“Are you fucking stupid?” he asks, and indignation flashes over Lawrence’s face, but Gates doesn’t have time for it. “D’you know what Singleton’s about to do? Did the faintest trickle of thought enter your head when you gave the order? Christ - we’ll be feared alright - and no ship will ever surrender herself willingly again. _Christ!”_

He strides through the door without another word, leaving Lawrence behind, anger rushing through him. The captain, he thinks, taking the steps leading to the hold as fast as he can, is an idiot. There are no two ways about about it - the man has gone off his hooks, or maybe Gates had the moment that he’d allowed the vote to go in the bastard’s favor. Damn the men anyway, for electing the stupid whoreson and damn the whoreson himself for lasting this long. Damn, hell, and blast it anyway! He moves downward, through the darkened passageways, and toward the sound of screaming.

“Gates.”

De Groot’s voice, and disapproving, concerned face greet him when he gets close. The man is standing by a door, his arms crossed.

“Willem.” The older sailor comes forward a step, his eyes intent on Gates’ face.

“This cannot continue,” he starts. “It must stop. You know -”

“I do know,” Gates cuts him off. “Get the men back to the Walrus if they’re not there already. We’re havin’ a vote when we get home - I’ll not have this jackass running us into the ground.”

“Thank God,” De Groot sighs, and moves past Gates, back down the passageway and toward the remaining crew. Gates moves forward, his hand reaching for the door in front of him.

“Singleton! I’m assuming the Captain’s covered the difference between useful and dead, but just in case he hasn’t - stop bloody killing him!” Gates comes through the doorway on the last syllable, eyes taking in the scene before him.

Singleton turns. Light glints off his bald head in the lantern-light of the hold, and he smiles unpleasantly. The cowering prisoner in the chair before him shrinks away, whimpering.

“I haven’t started properly yet,” he answers, brandishing the blade in his hand. Gates, looking at it, does what he can not to march forward and kill Singleton on the spot.

“Is that what you call it?” he asks, gesturing to the man in the chair. “He looks started, and finished too, if I’m any judge.”

He was not wrong, Gates thinks, to come down here with all speed. Singleton has a reputation among the crew - well-deserved, as the man in the chair proves. He’s a fucking mess, and once again Gates curses Lawrence, Singleton, and the bloody captain of this stupid ship for getting caught.

“Clear out,” he orders, and Singleton gives him a dirty look.

“Another two minutes and I’d have had it out of him,” he says. “He’s hiding something, mark my words, and whatever it is -”

“The only thing you were going to have out of him in the next two minutes was his guts,” Gates answers. “Don’t take me for a fool. Go on. Get out of here before I have you up before crew council for helping him in the captain’s cabin to fuck us all.”

Singleton’s lip curls.

“You think you can see him unseated,’ he sneers. “You haven’t got a leg to stand on, or a candidate that could win a vote among the men.” He wipes his hands on a rag and moves toward the door.

“Better the dairy goat than either you or Lawrence,” Gates mutters as the taller man exits the cargo storage. He waits until Singleton’s gone - until his footsteps have clumped away and the hold has gone silent once more - before turning his attention to the captain of the vessel he stands on.

“Jesus,” he mutters, and the man sitting on the barrel, his hands tied behind him, groans.

There is blood on the deck - a sizeable quantity of it. Gates looks the man over, assessing him, and then takes a step forward.

“Are you going to be trouble, or can I take these bindings off?” he asks, and the man’s eyes widen. He does not move, however, and Gates takes it as silent agreement. He will behave - Singleton has seen to that much, at least. The man winces as the ropes are cut and the blood rushes into his hands. Gates gives him a moment.

“You have a name?” he asks, and the captain nods.

“A-Ashford,” he says, his voice a croak. “Please -”

“Easy, friend.” Gates kneels at the man’s side. He is not, he thinks, a soft sort. He knows of no man of Every’s former crew who could have afforded it, save Long Ben himself, and Gates certainly does not consider himself as well-situated in Nassau society as his former captain. Still - they are a long way off from 1695 - ten years off, as a matter of fact, and he also does not consider himself to be a branch off of Teach’s tree. He has room, he thinks, for a little decency every now and again.

Room enough to hurt this man without killing him, at least.

“You’re in a bad spot,” he says, and Ashford gives a whimper.

“I have nothing,” he rasps. “Nothing hiding. I don’t know what you want!”

Gates frowns.

“I think you do,” he says quietly. “Come on. What the fuck are you carrying all the way out here?”

“We’re in the cargo hold,” Ashford answers miserably. “You can see for yourself.”

Gates sighs.

“Aye,” he answers, “that I can."

The prisoner does not see it coming. The scream that echoes through the hold is agonized, and he clutches at his broken arm, sobbing as Gates squeezes it tighter.

“What’s in the cabin?” he growls, and Ashford sobs.

“P-passengers,” he answers. Gates squeezes harder. “Slaves!” the thinner, balding man cries. “Indentured servants - from England!”

“And?” Gates’ voice is raised now.

“The Lord Proprietor’s son!”

Ashford slumps in his bonds, weeping piteously, and Gates lets go, stepping back.

“That’s a load of horse shite,” he informs Ashford matter of factly. It truly is - he’s never heard anything quite so ridiculous in his life. This ship is a heap of crap, and he can’t imagine a Lord Proprietor’s son stepping foot on it, let alone agreeing to travel all the way across the Atlantic. He shakes his head - he has to hand it to the man. “You’re damned tough,” he tells him. “I’ll give you that. Not many men would last this long.”

Ashford draws in a shaking, horrified breath.

“It’s true,” he insists - pleads. “I’m not lying. Lord Ashbourne said - to transport his son to Savannah. He’s bound and gagged in my cabin, he wouldn’t behave like a gentleman - please, God -!”

Wait. Bound and gagged?

“What kind of stupid fucking idiot do you take me for?” Gates asks, but it’s less a genuine question than a way to keep the other man on his toes. He’s not willing to concede defeat just yet, but -

It does make a sort of sense, doesn’t it? A lord wouldn’t agree to travel aboard this leaky tub, but a prisoner?

“The Lord Proprietor’s son?” he repeats incredulously, and Ashford nods, desperately, still weeping, but Gates has already moved on. If Ashford speaks the truth - then what the fuck is happening back in England and what the hell does it mean for Gates and for Nassau? What if -?

“Gates?” Randall’s voice sounds from the opposite side of the door, and Gates turns.

“Aye?”

“Need you on deck,” Randall says. “Captain says we’re to get underway. Something the matter?”

Gates stares at Ashford a moment more, and then tears his gaze away.

“Maybe. Tell the men I want a word at the door to the captain’s cabin. Tell them to clear off - I don’t want them hangin’ about, trying to hear every word I say, you hear?”

Randall nods, and then Gates turns back to Ashford.

“If I believe you - and I’m not sayin’ I do - what name did they give you for this son of the Lord High Muckety Muck?”

*****************************************************

Cotton tastes terrible. If he never, ever tastes it again in his life, Thomas is certain that he will still be having nightmares by the time he’s old.

Provided, of course, that he lives to be an old man, and he is currently less than certain of that. His backside hurts from sitting on it. There is tingling in the tips of his fingers that he does not like at all - they have tied him too tightly this time, and try as he might, he cannot seem to shift the ropes that hold him, as he has done before to try and ease the discomfort of his situation. He is hungry - and cold, because he is hungry, and above all, he is frightened and absolutely, incandescently fucking furious.

“Get me out of these bloody ropes right now or so help me -!” he says, or he tries to say again. He cannot, of course - the gag in his mouth prevents him, and all he succeeds at is getting more saliva on the cloth that is already chafing at his mouth and chin, rubbing raw patches that are absolutely agonizing, or would be if he were still willing to register pain. He is not, therefore he will not - he is too busy trying desperately to catch the gaze of the other men and women locked in the cabin with him.

He is the only one bound. It is not a coincidence - the other poor wretches appear to have accepted their fate to a sufficient degree that they are not deemed a risk to the crew, at least. They have also locked themselves and him in this cabin - the door is bolted and obstructed, and now they all sit, huddled, in the meager light streaming through the window behind them, waiting for the sounds of men cursing, shouting, and laughing while they plunder the ship to fade.

Or at least - the other two are waiting for that. Thomas, on the other hand, has no such plans. His wrists are raw with the effort he has expended in attempting to wrench them free of their bonds. His muscles ache, and yet he does not cease his efforts. He will, he thinks, allow himself to acknowledge his pains when he is free. He must get free - he must, that is all there is to it, and so once again he kicks out, hitting the shin of the man closest to him.

“Free me!” he demands, and the man winces.

“That fucking hurt!” he complains in an upper class accent, and the woman next to him snorts.

“Kick him harder,” she advises Thomas, and he obliges, drawing his leg back and kicking outward. It lands with a solid thud.

“Ow! Rose!” his fellow prisoner complains, and the woman to Thomas’ right gives a short laugh.

“You had that coming,” she says. She reaches forward - and Thomas takes a grateful gasp of breath when she removes the gag from his mouth, breathing in the salt and the stench of the men in the cabin and not caring about the smell for even a moment, so happy is he to have the foul-tasting thing gone. She grimaces as she pulls at it, tossing it away.

“Thank you,” Thomas rasps, and then winces. He is still bound; there is no possibility of raising his hands to his abused mouth to poke at the damage and perhaps that is a good thing. He swallows once, twice, wishing for a drink of clean water and a bath, but both of those things have been well beyond his reach for the past month. He turns his face toward his new ally, and she raises an eyebrow.

“You happy now?” she asks, and Thomas shakes his head.

“No,” he answers, and she laughs bitterly.

“Well - you’re not an idiot, then. Who are you?”

“My name is Thomas,” he answers. “Untie me. We need to open the door - I need to speak to the men outside, please.”

Rose shakes her head.

“Nevermind,” she pronounces, “you’re as daft as they said you were.”

The other man shoots her an injured “I told you so” look, and begins to move toward him, the sodden gag in his hands.

“Peter - there’s no need for that,” Rose starts, and Thomas can feel his blood coming back to a boil.

“No!” he snaps. “I’m not daft, or insane, damn it! Do you truly mean to sit here while this ship is raided? I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly - no, don’t you bloody dare!” Peter is moving toward him, favoring the leg Thomas kicked, and Thomas does his very best to glare him into submission. “If you try to put that in my mouth again I will bite you and I sincerely hope it becomes infected. Listen to me! Do you ever want to be free again or not?”

“My indenture’s for three years,” Peter tells him grimly. “I go with pirates, and the sentence is a hanging. Now open up - I’m not listening to your yammering for the rest of the voyage. Open -”

Thomas kicks outward again, and Peter swears. Why, Thomas wonders, is it that the only Peters he’s met have been selfish shits, both?  

“Let me go!” he demands. “If you won’t go with them, that’s your decision but at least have the decency to let me -”

“Don’t,” Rose says. “For pity’s sake, Peter -”

There is a knock on the door.

“Thomas Hamilton?”

Thomas does not recognize the voice. It serves, however, to pause Peter in his tracks, and Thomas cannot help but feel a small wave of relief wash over him. He has done it - he has managed to keep the gag out of his mouth, and now -

“Let me go,” he says quietly, warningly. “You will never hear my yammering again, only allow me to speak with these men. Let me leave, or -”

“Or what?” Peter challenges, and Thomas raises his chin and his voice.  

“I’m here!” he shouts to the pirate beyond the door. “I’m having a bit of trouble persuading -”

He is yanked to his feet swiftly.

“Shut up,” Peter hisses, and then Thomas gives a grin of near-vicious satisfaction as his hands are unbound and he is hustled toward the door.

“He’s here,” Peter snaps. “What the hell do you want with him?”

“Give him up,” comes the same man’s voice, “and maybe - just maybe - we’ll consider ourselves compensated for the bloody pain in the arse we had chasing this bastard ship down.”

Peter bristles.

“If you did not want to be troubled, then perhaps you should not have chased our ship down to begin with, pirate!”

Thomas does not pretend to know everything about pirates. He does not pretend to know everything about negotiation, either, but he does know that this is not the way to begin a discussion, and he is tired, and in pain, and, for the first time since he’s stepped foot on this vessel, he is unbound. He steps forward. He has had enough of this bizarre exchange - enough being treated as if he does not matter, simply _enough._ In a moment, Peter is groaning in pain on the ground, cupping his abused groin, and Thomas is standing alone at the door.

“Might I know the name of the person that wants me retrieved?” he asks.

“The name is Gates,” comes the answer. “You’re Thomas, are you?”

“Yes. If you wish me to open this door, I have two conditions.” He can hear the pirate’s surprise through the door.

“ _Conditions?”_ he asks incredulously. “Here’s one for you. You come out and I don’t set fire to this ship.”

“And what good would that do you?” Thomas asks sharply. “You haven’t come to drag me out of this cabin until now, despite having taken the ship three hours past. That means that you didn’t find my name on the manifest, or on a list of passengers - you’ve gotten it from the captain, ergo, you know that I’m not here as a passenger but as a prisoner. You know there is no ransom to be had from my _loving father_ who put me here, and yet you’re still here, still trying to get me to come out. You don’t want money - you want information, and I might be the only person that can give it to you. Burning the ship would be counter-productive, so why don’t you stop blustering and allow me to name my terms?”

Thomas holds his breath for a moment. He’s lost his temper, slightly - it may prove to be his undoing, but he hopes not. There is a pause, and then -

“You’re a smart bastard, I’ll give you that,” Gates says, grudging appreciation in his tone. “Name your conditions.”

Thomas allows himself a breath - not a smile, not yet, for he has not yet won this.

“First,” he says, “if you find my answers to your questions unsatisfactory, you release me unharmed the next time you make port.”

“Done,” Gates agrees easily, and Thomas resists the urge to start in surprise.

“Second -” He takes a deep breath. “If my answers are to your liking - if I have the information you seek, then you allow me to earn my keep among you. A place on your crew and an equal share of your next prize. I would prefer not to arrive in the New World utterly destitute, without the skill to support myself, and all because of another man’s malice.”

There is a longer pause, this time - considering, Thomas hopes, or merely surprised. He does not, after all, know many men of his circle who would have made a similar request. Most would have expected to be kept comfortably out of the crew’s way, fed and either disregarded or pampered. His father would expect it. Thomas most emphatically does not.

“You’re a lord,” Gates points out a moment later, and Thomas braces himself. “Do you even know a jib sail from a main?” Here comes the challenge.

“I know enough,” Thomas answers. “My -” He stops. He has heard things about the pirates of Nassau. He has heard of their unconventional practices, of their violence - and of their view toward men such as himself and James. He could, he thinks suddenly, mention James. Could tell them what he truly means to Thomas - for the first time in his life, he could say what it is he feels for the red-haired man he truly hopes has escaped his father’s wrath, and yet -

“I have had some instruction in a ship’s functioning,” he says instead. “And the rest I intend to learn quickly.” Better to save confessions for a later date, if at all. Best not to mention James to these men at all, truly, given that Thomas is still in a tenuous position, and it hurts to think of James as any form of liability when he has only ever been Thomas’ strength. Still -

“Do we have a deal?” he asks, and hears Gates give a huff of breath.

“We’re losing the wind,” he says. “There’s a lesson from a proper sailor for you. We have a deal, or we’ll be spending a great deal longer together than I’d anticipated. Now unbar the door.”

It is the best Thomas is going to get, and either way it removes him from this vessel - removes him from the looming certainty of the shackles that await him as a slave, held at some godawful place, bent to his father’s will forcibly. He’ll take it.

“Hide,” he tells Rose, and she nods. She doesn’t need to be told twice - by the time he unbars the door, she’s nowhere to be seen, and he silently wishes her a decent life. He steps out into the sunlight -

And makes out the form of a balding, shortish, stocky man standing before him, mouth turned down in a frown that is only accentuated by the mustache that sits above it..

“Dear Christ,” Hal Gates tells him. “You’re bloody tall.”

His wrists are chafed and bleeding, still. He is filthy and tired and he can still feel his anger singing in his blood, but he does not care - he is free - for the first time in his life, beholden to none. He smiles.

“You’d best assign me a task above decks, then,” he answers, and Gates snorts.

“Aye. Come on - Randall! Take the man below, get him seen to. New crew - no, don’t give me that look, he gets his first share from the next prize, not this leaky tub. Lads! Time to get the fuck out of here. Go get Captain Lawrence - tell him we’re leaving with or without his sorry arse. Mr. Hamilton -”

“My name is Thomas,” he interjects, and Gates grunts, surprised.

“Right,” he says after a moment. “Thomas - welcome to the Walrus.”


	2. Chapter 2

Gates turns to their newest crew member almost as soon as they’ve boarded the Walrus.

“We’ll speak later.” He has things to do at the moment - the cargo has been secured in the hold, what little of it there is, but it is Gates’ responsibility to check it over and ensure that it has been fastened down tight. He’ll need to manage the men - Lawrence is a miserable bastard but he doesn’t deserve what the men will do to him when they find out there’s nothing to be had off their last fight if they’ve no rum in them beforehand. He needs a word with the cook -

And then, he thinks, he needs to find out what kind of a shitstorm is about to hit them, if any. The young man he’s just allowed onto his ship looks as though he’s had the worst month of his life. He’s pale as death, his clothing is torn in several places, and the beard he wears looks like it’s never seen a comb or scissors. There are dark circles under his eyes, and from the way he walks, his shoulders hurt like hell and he still hasn’t found his sea legs, speaking to the way he’s spent the journey. He’s a mess - a lordly mess, and Gates feels a sudden wash of sympathy and anger on his behalf.

“Go and speak with Randall, the bosun,” he offers. “He’ll see you sorted with some clothing and a hammock, at least, and then I want you to go and see the surgeon. I’m not having you fall out of the rigging trying to work before you’re ready. Too much of a mess when you land.” The words are gruff, and Gates turns away. He has things to do - things that do not involve comforting noble brats, taken from their home and willing to earn their keep or not. He does not turn back, does not look at his newest charge, and so does not see Thomas pass a hand over his hair, laugh somewhat unsteadily, and then sit down on a barrel, chest heaving, relief turning his bones to jelly.

He truly has no idea what he expects to hear when they speak, but it is not the flood of information that comes tumbling out of Thomas the moment he comes to see the younger man.

“Slow down,” he says. “What the fuck do you mean, the Lord Proprietor’s gone off his hooks?”

They are sitting in the galley. He’d found Thomas there - small surprise, he supposes, given that the man looks like he’s been getting perhaps one meal a day, judging by the way his clothing hangs loose on him even now.  The borrowed sailors’ trousers and shirt look as though they belong to a sailor Gates vaguely recalls - a wall of a man who’d gone over the side three prizes ago and never come back, leaving behind only the contents of his seabag and his name on the articles to prove he’d been there. He’ll have to make a point to thank Cairns for donating them to Thomas, he thinks - the dead man had been his mate.

“I’m standing here in clothing that is not even mine, the contents of my pockets my only possessions, having been abducted from my home and my family, and all on the orders of my father, so yes, I would say it’s quite likely that he has finally lost all semblance of decency and reason,” Thomas snaps. “He was attempting, when he decided that I was a nuisance too dangerous to tolerate, to put together a plan that would see New Providence Island reclaimed from her current masters and her revenues restored to his own pockets - a plan for which I am in no small part responsible.”

“You wrote it - and now you’re telling me about it?” Gates asks, and Thomas scowls.

“My plan was intended to save lives. I had no intention of seeing New Providence turned back into an extension of England’s already over-long reach, but my father has other designs. I am telling you - if he has his way, the island is in immediate danger, and I cannot stop it. I tried.” He stops, runs a hand through his hair, and sits back down. “We tried,” he says softly, “and now I am not certain there is a force on this earth sufficient to stop what my father has planned, but I do not intend to sit aside and let him have his way. How far are we from Nassau right now?”

“If the Lord Proprietor intends to retake the island, Nassau is the last place we should be making for right now,” Gates says. He starts to turn - starts to head topside. There are other ports - other places to sell their goods, and to refit, and the repairs to the ship suddenly look more urgent than ever. The men will want to go back one last time - to get wives and sweethearts, to say their goodbyes to the girls at Mrs. Mapleton’s establishment, to kill old rivals or forget to pay their tab one last time, settle up whatever business they’ve left unfinished and Gates is torn between letting them and taking the ship as far as they can get from Nassau before the shit can start to roll downhill.

“You do not truly intend to run?” Thomas asks incredulously, and Gates turns back.

“I was thinking of it, yes,” he answers, and takes another step away.

“Where do you plan to go?”

“Away from here.”

“This won’t stop,” Thomas snaps. “If you run - if you turn away from this -”

“Then it’ll be that much longer before the bastards can catch me,” Gates cuts him off. “Or do you know of a way to keep England from our shores with a fortress that can barely support the weight of guns on her ramparts when they’re not firing on anything, a harbor full of men who’d rather piss themselves than withstand a single broadside from a warship, and a town that has no walls and catches fire of a night half the time anyway without a fucking invasion force trying to blow it to smithereens?”

Thomas is silent, and Gates raises an eyebrow and tilts his head to one side. The silence is his answer, and he knows it, and so does Thomas, by the look of him. The younger man slumps, the wind taken out of his sails, and Gates reaches out a hand, squeezing his shoulder.

“It’s a fool’s errand, lad,” he says. “We’d need a military genius to have even a prayer. Best to run, and fight our battles somewhere we’ve got half a hope in hell of defending if we fight them at all.”

“What if I could find you one?” Thomas asks in all seriousness, and Gates rolls his eyes.

“Christ Jesus,” he mutters. “I’m beginning to see why you found yourself the wrong side of his Lord Proprietorship. Where in the hell do you propose to find a tactician that would work with us?”

“I’m not sure where he is at the moment, but I know where I left him,” Thomas answers. “If I could find him -” He trails off, an odd look flashing across his face for an instant, and Gates shakes his head.

If and maybes don’t win a war.

“Get some rest,” he advises. “We’ll try you on the rigging crew in the morning.”

He turns, and he does not quite miss the sigh of defeat that follows as he walks away.

“One day,” Thomas murmurs, “I’m going to speak about Nassau and someone other than James and the cat are going to listen.”

There’s a low meow from somewhere close by, and Gates rolls his eyes again. Thomas and the cat and this James can agree all they like. Hal Gates is getting the hell out of Nassau - as soon as may possibly be.

************************************

_Nassau:_

 

It takes Gates all of two weeks to change his mind.

The tavern is a cesspit. It’s truly remarkable, Gates thinks, how a building can change in the span of four months. When he had visited this place before, it had been quieter. It had had its fair share of dirt - of course it had, it was a public house frequented by pirates and merchant sailors alike, a stopping place for the vast multitudes of men that had no homes, no wives, no mistresses to keep them respectable, and so it had been less than completely above board, but still - the proprietor had been a decent man, the ale good enough, and the ratio of working girls to patrons significantly different. Now -

Well, Gates isn’t going to judge. The grog’s still good, and ordinarily he would be enjoying his mug of it, but the man sitting across from him has his entire attention.

He’s nothing special to look at. He sits at the table, bent over his mug, hair spilling into his face, the sleeves of his brown coat resting in the muck like everyone else’s. He looks, Gates thinks, like a man cut adrift.

“Hal Gates,” he introduces himself. “You look like you’re in need of a drink.”

“I’m in need of a ship and a crew,” the man answers, and moments later Gates finds himself staring in barely concealed shock, hand clenched around his drink, wondering if he’s finally gone a bit mad.

“James - Flint,” the red-haired echo of Avery introduces himself, and Gates doesn’t buy the name, or the rough, dangerous air the man seems determined to project, any more than he’d bought the persona his former captain had attempted to pull on for his men when Long Ben was needed rather than Henry Every, son of Simon, blacksheep of the family Every and rightful baronet. He can hear the clipped vowels as they begin to talk, see the rough-chopped ends of his hair, as if he’s only just cut it short. He’s got an air to him that Gates recognizes - gone a bit round the twist with whatever’s driven him here, and Hal can tell. He should get up - should go and find another to captain the Walrus and yet -

He can hear, too, the fire in the man’s voice when he says “England owes us what it has taken. I intend to collect.”

He has long since given up on causes. He has given up on hopeless battles for freedom, for dignity, for justice, but James Flint looks him in the eye, promises him a future and it is his old captain that Gates hears, vowing not just freedom but vengeance - not peace but a sword, a life lived in a place that is his and why the hell has Gates come back to the account but to make for himself a life and an end he can be proud of instead of a pauper’s grave on an English hillside? He curses himself for a fool, but he cannot help but believe - any more than he could help himself all those years ago, when a young, foolish version of himself had agreed to mutiny, had agreed to treason, in search of fair treatment and fair pay.

“You have a plan?” he asks, and Flint smiles. It is a slow, vicious thing and that, too, is familiar.

“With the right men, and the right resources,” James Flint tells him, “we could turn this place into the nightmare of every civilized nation,” and Gates takes a deep breath. Thomas Hamilton had best not gloat about this, or he’ll have the skinny, oddly endearing pain in the arse down in the galley peeling potatoes for a week. And speaking of whom -

“James and the cat,” he’d said. Gates wonders, but says nothing, because he refuses to start thinking of the madman at his side as James this early in their new joint venture. Instead, he downs a mouthful of ale, and asks -

“What do we need?”

*******************************************************

“She’s in need of a good careening and a refit,” Gates warns. “I’ll not pretend otherwise, but she’s no derelict.”

It has been exactly three months since he has been in command of much of anything, James thinks. Three months since Miranda had started keeping a close watch on him, worried for his health - worried, he knows, that he will harm himself. He has spent those three months becoming this shadow of his former self - they both have, and for all of Miranda’s attempts at care, he knows that he is an unkempt wreck. He can feel the sand getting into his clothing- the grease that has begun to coat his hair again here, in this place, where there are no seasons, only days that are slightly less unbearable than others. More than that, though - he can feel himself changing, and he does not like it. He does not want it - does not want _Flint_.

He does not know the man that has come marching out of his mouth over the past hour. He does not like him - he knows that much. Flint is all of his own worst tendencies made flesh - a grim spectre that James can feel settling over his own form like a possessing spirit, drawing his mouth into a deeper frown, taking his grief and turning it to rage. Flint can keep his voice steady when James can feel the horror choking him. He can keep his steps from faltering when James wants to sink to his knees. Flint can keep going - can look Gates in the eye, and promise to do things that James would never even contemplate, and James hates him, in every part, from the short hair that falls around James’ ears to the gravelly sound of his voice, to the way he walks - all purpose, eyes firmly fixed on his goal as if nothing else exists. As if nothing else matters, and Christ, what the hell would Thomas say if he could see James now, stalking along beside Gates as if he belongs in this fucking sewer of a town?

This is not his life. This is not who he is, and he refuses to allow Flint to fully settle into him as if there had never been a James McGraw at all. He forces himself to look about him - forces himself to shove Flint to the side just for a moment. It is only until Thomas is returned to them - only temporary. This mask is just that.

“It’ll come down to a vote,” Gates is saying, and James forces himself to pay attention. “This isn’t the Navy - we don’t have appointed officers save for what the crew decide among themselves, so there’re a few you’ll want to get in good with. My opinion carries a good deal of weight, but just in case -”

“How’s the cook?” James asks, and Gates gives him a look.

“Fucking awful,” he answers, and James attempts an amused expression. It must work - he doesn’t feel any amusement, but he’s always been good at making others think they know what he’s thinking.

“And the surgeon?” he asks, and Gates looks at him speculatively.

“I thought you said you were an officer,” he says, and James snorts.

“For all the good it did me,” he says. “My father was a carpenter’s mate. _Get the men’s bellies on your side and their wounds tended and you can’t go wrong_ ,” he quotes, imitating Edward McGraw’s broad vowels and deeper voice, and Gates gives a huff of laughter.

“Wise man,” he says, and James feels one corner of his mouth lift a fraction. A smile, or something close to one - he has wondered, over the last three hellish months, if he will ever do so again, and it seems he can, still, foreign though the expression feels.

“If I were looking to recruit a new cook, whose crew might I steal him from?” he asks, and Gates shakes his head.

“If you steal Teach’s cook -” he starts, and James snorts.

“I intend to take more from him than that,” he says as they reach the shoreline. “And the surgeon?”

“We’ve got one of those, at least,” Gates answers. “Name of Howell - ah. Here’s another one you’ll want to meet. Hoy, Thomas - whoa! Steady on!”

The name goes right through him. He turns, the hole in his heart widening a fraction and - there is the sound of rushing footsteps on the sand, a flash of blond hair out of the corner of his eye, but it cannot be -

“James,” Thomas sobs, and then Flint is gone and James McGraw is rendered boneless with relief and shock and joy.

*********************************************************************

“How?” he will ask later. He will find out how this has come to be - how they can possibly have been so very fortunate. Miranda will weep, and James will run his hands over Thomas’ form, checking him over for small injuries and large, and Thomas will do the same to him, but for now-

 _“Thomas.”_ The name escapes James’ lips in a gasp, and Thomas laughs against his shoulder, his arms wrapped firmly around his lover, holding him tight and being held in return as much the result of sheer muscle memory as relief and joy. “Jesus - how in the hell -?” He abandons the question, because he is still breathless, the wind knocked from him at the force of Thomas’ embrace - Thomas can hear it in his voice. He is here - he is here, he is whole, Alfred has not succeeded in stealing him too, and Thomas cannot help the equally breathless laughter that escapes him at the realization. James is here, and Thomas is in his arms, and he can breathe again.

“Thomas,” James says, and now the name is a sigh of relief, not shock, and the familiar arms tighten around him. He will ask him later, he is sure - about Bethlem, about the whole day that Thomas had spent there before being moved, but for now, he simply buries his face in the crook of Thomas’ neck, and then -

“Miranda?” Thomas asks, when he can breathe again - when James’ kiss is no longer scorching him, and when his lover has opened his eyes again.

“She’s fine,” he answers. “Christ - Miranda. Mr. Gates -” He looks around. Gates, Thomas realizes, is gone.

Or not - there are footprints in the sand, and Hal Gates stands off to one side, his arms crossed.

“I think you forgot to mention a thing or two about your military genius,” he says in an exasperated tone.

 _“Genius?”_ James asks, and Thomas grins.

“I won’t hear a word of protest,” he tells James, and watches his lover begin to grin. “Mr. Gates - this is-”

“Aye, I know who he is,” Gates says. “And it looks as though the three of us have some planning to do. If, of course, you two lovebirds are still interested in having that war you’re both so keen on?”

“Both of us?” James asks, surprise laced in his words, and Thomas looks him in the eye.

“It won’t work the way we had planned it,” he answers, steel in his voice. “I can see that now. If we cannot reason with my father -”

“Then we remove him,” James says, “and make this place our own.” His voice is hard, his eyes two chips of jade, and Thomas - Thomas feels his breath catch.

“I hadn’t thought -” he starts, then he shakes his head. “Every time I think I’ve got your measure,” he says wonderingly. “You were prepared to go to war. For me.”

James nods, and Thomas breathes out slowly, the emotion that sweeps over him at the admission quite indescribable.

“Oh you bloody fool,” he mutters. “You wonderful, utter fool.” He wants to reach out - wants to take James’ face between his hands and kiss him until he has no breath left, but Gates still stands, waiting for an answer.

“Mr. Gates,” he says, and James stands straighter at the tone in Thomas’ voice - as does Gates, interestingly. “I believe we have a war to plan.”

 

_Epilogue:_

 

His wife’s hands are soft.

There is little he would not do for his wife, Thomas thinks sleepily. She has been through so much, his Miranda - the kind of grief no one should ever endure, suffering well above and beyond the call of duty, and all for him, and for James, and he would not begrudge her one single thing.

Save, perhaps, for giving up his position between her and James, despite her tickling at his bare sides, her soft, beautiful hands dancing up and down his skin.

“Miranda,” he laughs, “no. I am not getting up off this bed - after two months at sea, not Moses himself could make me.”

“Thomas Hamilton,” she scolds. “I have been hard at work all day. I have met with pirates and merchants, had more cups of tea than I can recall. I have finally secured the trade partnership you wished for with the dragon of Nassau herself, and I am quite certain I have earned the right to be cosseted in between the both of you.”

“Mrs. Mapleton is not a dragon,” James murmurs from his spot. His eyes are closed, and his arms are still resting above his head, his forearms propping the pillow up under his head, quite obviously comfortable and intending to remain so, and Thomas suddenly understands why he is the party his wife has approached to move from his spot, as James is quite plainly rooted to the bed. “If she _were_ , she’d be sitting on a pile of coin somewhere, and we would be without an ally in the brothel.”

“She drives a regrettably hard bargain,” Miranda answers, and finally climbs onto the bed, poking and prodding at Thomas until he shifts at last, with a huff of breath and a laugh.

There is something to the way the days pass here, Thomas has discovered - they either go by with frantic urgency, or they pass the way this one has - slowly, at a pace that he would scarcely have credited could belong to anywhere but his bedroom in London, carefully sequestered away from the world. Their bedroom here may be smaller, but it feels somehow like that one - a space that is just theirs, with hints of all three of their presences scattered everywhere.

He cannot bear to think what this room might have been without any one of them. He nestles himself closer to Miranda, and she begins to run a hand through his hair, as James reaches up to kiss her in greeting.

“It’s done, then,” he says, satisfaction in his voice, and she gives a hum of agreement. “Good. Thomas and I can set sail tomorrow.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you’ve both thanked me properly for -” she starts, and then sees the grin on James’ face. “Oh you and your teasing!” she scolds, and James laughs, and Thomas relaxes into their bed, the Caribbean heat shut out of this cool space filled with life, and love, and the promise of a new era dawning.


End file.
